Parent Shaming: Everyone Makes Child Safety Mistakes A recent incident dealing with a 3-year-old boy who fell into the zoo exhibit of a 420-lb. gorilla has sparked national outrage towards the child’s mother. As an article in Time puts it, an attack of “mommy shaming” began. Parent shaming is all about reverse-engineering a moment. A bad thing happened; there for a parent must be to blame. Parenting is hard. Having a child means being at least...

Helping Your Anxious Child Towards a Calm Mind Helping your anxious child can be challenging. Anxiety disorders and OCD are considered some of the most common mental health conditions. As a parent you try to support your child and provide the best tools for helping your anxious child. Some tools are effect while others don’t have as successful of results that therapists would hope. Science Daily discusses new research that is testing different treatment strategies to...

In an article published by EurekAlert! a new study concerning the autism traits in hackers was discussed. Apparently, hackers tend to favor systemizing and pay attention to detail more than others, two well-known autism traits. As the digital world begins to look more like a warzone, job descriptions for “ethical” hackers are increasing. These hackers help protect companies, businesses, government agencies, etc. in the online world. What is systemizing? Systemizing is the “drive to analyze, explore,...

The New York Times recently published an article concerning the common struggle of the introverted child in today’s school setting. Many people--specifically in American society--firmly believe anyone can become an extrovert and that they should, because those are the “better” characteristics. Schools and offices have adopted this mentality. Everything seems to have a “group-oriented” or “leadership” theme to it, even though this ignores the needs of the typical introverted child. This derives from a lack of...

Resources to help troubled teens can be the difference between finding solutions at home and sending your child to a residential treatment program. While residential treatment is the right choice for many situations you owe it to your family to try to solve the problem at home. The next three titles are books that not only sell well in stores, but have actual clinical support for their methods. All created from a research perspective they provide...

Video games have become a regular part of teenage life. Instead of whippin’ out a board game or a stack of cards, it’s an Xbox, Playstation, Wii, or Nintendo. This is all fine, games have always changed with the times--except some kids are finding themselves needing video game addiction treatment. Video game addiction has been linked to self-harm, sleep deprivation, ADHD, and disorders related to obesity. [caption id="attachment_90" align="alignright" width="300"] Image source: Flickr user- bennett4senate[/caption] Examples...

This summer I embark on my first journey into parenting. As a fan of Game of Thrones I would like to share my lesson’s learned from the paternal examples and the pitfalls some of the adults seem to carry with them. Never love one child less than the others- I don’t actually know if any people do this in real life, but I am sure kids can feel it. They know when they are the least...

Every parent worries their teen is depressed at one point or another. Depression in teens is a serious issue that plagues families all over the country. This can manifest itself in many different ways. Anxiousness- Teens can be anxious over possible events. Or loss of control. A lot of this is focused on events that have not yet happened but potentially will happen. High Highs and Low Lows- You can see major mood swings in your...

CNN recently reported on the dangerous bullying effects on adolescent minds. As technology integrates itself into our society, bullying has begun to transfer from the schoolyard to the cyber universe. Bullying effects can reach boys and girls. Bullying has the ability to seriously damage an adolescent--physically and mentally. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s report stated that these bullying effects should be deemed a “serious public health problem” because of the damage which can...

A new study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) investigated the link between teen social media use, cyberbullying, and unhealthy eating. A correlation between overzealous teen social media use and unhealthy eating habits was found. An “unhealthy eating habit” could be considered skipping breakfast and heading for a caffeine-loaded, sugar-filled energy drink instead. It was also found that younger teens had a higher chance of being targeted for cyberbullying. How teen social...